Word problems and nets and cubes

[ronkevso]

Hello there

My son finds word problems confusing. He is great at straight maths but needs more support with word problems. Does anyone know of any books/ websites etc that explain step by step how to tackle a range of word problems?

Could also do with a step by step guides on how to do nets and cubes.

Pls pls help. Thanks in advance

[russet]

senteacher is a website with printables of quite a few nets. You can print them onto light cardboard then cut and stick them into shape.

Can't really help with word problems other than saying sometimes it pays to read the facts in reverse order.

[ronkevso]

Thank you russet, I will check it out.

There has been very little response to this post. Does that mean a) No one has difficulty with these areas or b) these areas have been discussed in earlier posts?

Has anyone got some tips/ advice on word problems or nets and cubes?

[yoyo123]

Lots of children find word problems difficult.

Read the question carefully and work out what is useful information and what is not. Underline the important bits ( numbers etc). Work out what operation is needed. Solve the equation, then make sure you have actually answered the question.

There are lots of examples online.

Main problems seem to be sorting out the important information ..underline it.

Working out what operation to use...try a sorting game, cards with +, -, x and / on. Read a selection of problems and decide which operarion is needed.

vocabulary ( can use sorting method here too) ..how many ALTOGETHER , TOTAL, DIFFERENCE, SUM OF, PRODUCT.

Reading Question carefully. What is it actually asking?

Many schools use the acronym RUCSAC

Read
Understand
Choose
Solve
Answer
Check

[Guest55]

Making up your own problems is also a good way of learning how to understand how to solve them.

Start with a piece of information, for example, a pencil costs 20p. Now what questions could we make up?

A pencil costs 20p. How much does 4 pencils cost?

A pencil costs 20p. How many can I buy for £2?

and so on ...

You can then make multi-stage problems.

A pencil costs 20p. If I buy 8 pencils how much change do I get from £2?

[ronkevso]

Thanks for the advice. I like both ideas< I will try them with DS.